The present invention relates to a data collection system configured to collect various information transmitted from a plurality of terminals.
In recent years, digitalization of various types of data such as an order for a product, sales data, merchandise information and customer information used in companies is progressing. Further, with the growing popularization and uses of various digital terminals such as sensor devices and smartphones, the volume of data that exists in the world is massively expanding from terabytes to petabyte.
A collection of data that is large and not fully structured is referred to as “big data.” It is expected that big data will be collected, analyzed, and utilized by using an advanced technology for use in society and business in the near future.
In the fast changing market environment of recent years, accumulating a large amount of data becomes an issue. In such context, M2M has received attention as a way to collect a large amount of data.
M2M stands for Machine to Machine and is a mechanism which allows a machine to exchange information with another machine reciprocally via a network without a direct human involvement therein. It is expected that it becomes possible to automatically collect a large amount of data efficiently by using M2M.
A conventional data collection system using M2M is a vertically integrated type where data is collected per each type of industry, which is problematic in that the construction cost of such system is unfeasible for some types of industries unless the data to be collected reaches a certain scale. Moreover, since each industry requires its own implementation of such system, one system applicable to one type of industry may not be applicable to other types of industry without major modification to the system.
In the future where a data collection system applicable for a wide variety of industries becomes a necessity, a universal and a horizontally integrated type of system capable of collecting data for multiple types of industries will be required.
Further, it is expected that the amount of data to be collected from a sensor device connected to a data collection system will be vast due to required timeliness in the collection, thus a system capable of efficiently collecting a large amount of data will be required.
WO2011/099320, for example, discloses a technology related to the present invention disclosed herein. WO2011/099320 discloses “in nodes (141-142) disposed between terminal devices (105-110) and a processing server (101), in response to the problem wherein a central portion of a network gets congested when data from a variety of apparatuses, such as sensors or control devices, is passed as is over the network, determinations are made as to whether the nodes will process packets being sent from the terminal devices to the processing server. If it is determined that the nodes will process the packets, it will be possible for the nodes to minimize load on the central portion of the network by carrying out the processing in place of the processing server.”